June 24, 2020

NASPA Virtual Conferences on Student Success in Higher Education

Workshop
Student Success
Career and Workforce Development
Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice

June 29 - July 1, 2020
Virtual

SAVE THE DATE!

The 2020 NASPA Conferences on Student Success in Higher Education is going virtual! The conference will take place via the remote platform from June 29 - July 1, 2020, with pre-conference workshops, held on June 28th.

Presented By

About

The NASPA Virtual Conferences on Student Success in Higher Education convenes the student success-focused community to engage in important professional development, exchange innovative ideas, and network with peers. Through an exciting new virtual platform, you will engage with content from the Assessment Persistence, and Data Analytics Conference, Closing the Achievement Gap Conference, First-generation Student Success Conference, and Student Financial Wellness Conference without the need to travel.

The NASPA Virtual Conferences on Student Success in Higher Education is your opportunity to take a cross-functional approach to student success when it has never been more important.

Learn more about the #SSHE20 Conferences Themes

Assessment, Persistence, and Data Analytics Themes

Fundamentals of Assessment

Effective assessment becomes easier to understand and manage when grounded in a solid foundation of knowledge. Sessions in this theme provide an understanding of foundational assessment concepts by exploring topics that align with fundamental assessment skills and knowledge.

Sessions in this theme may include the following topics:

Defining the philosophical purpose of assessment and common terms used in assessment practice;

Addressing ethical, institutional, and political issues in assessment method implementation, analysis and reporting;

Developing an assessment process within a student affairs division or department;

Using standards, best practices, research based/theoretical framework; and

Engaging and training staff in quality assessment implementation.

Assessment Methods and Measurements

A strong foundation of knowledge grounded in methods and measurements is necessary for effective assessment. Sessions in this theme provide foundational or advanced concepts of methods (e.g. case studies, portfolios, interviews/focus groups, use of national datasets, rubrics, etc.) and data analysis.

Sessions in this theme may include the following topics:

Explaining the use of a specific method that aided in data acquisition that impacted a campus decision;

Discussing data analysis techniques, to include how to share results with various audiences; and

Institutions and their departments rely on relevant and timely data to inform their practices. Sessions in this theme provide foundational to advanced concepts of how data is collected, analyzed, and acted upon. As well as how institutions have built their infrastructure: capacity, integrate systems, processes.

Sessions in this theme may include the following topics:

Demonstrating how institutional data is communicated to various stakeholders and acted upon;

Identifying strategies for data collaboration and integration between academic units and student affairs;

Using data from multiple sources to describe learning outcomes achievement; and

Collecting and using data in the accreditation process.

Retention & Persistence Initiatives for Diverse Populations

This learning theme highlights system-wide efforts to support persistence as well as institutional efforts to support student retention initiatives for specific and diverse student populations including first generation, low-income, minority (e.g. racial, religious, sexual orientation, etc.), adult, part-time, transfer, veteran, disabled, and other underserved students.

Closing the Achievement Gap Themes

How do higher education professionals create programs that are culturally relevant to students?

What interventions are institutions using to retain students?

Are there programs that are designed to assist students in re-engaging with the campus if they have had to stop out?

What support models offer compelling results for acclimating students to college life (peer mentorship, etc.)?

In what ways do professionals measure success of initiatives and communicate those successes to stakeholders?

Identify support systems to dismantle barriers to student completion.

What programs are most effective in preparing students for college? How is success in these programs measured?

What strategies are effective in increasing first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented student success in STEM disciplines?

In what ways do institutional shifts toward “student-ready” approaches shape the experiences of first-generation college students?

What roles do front line staff play in removing barriers to success for students? What strategies are being successfully used at the systemic and institutional levels?

How do mid-level and senior level staff serve as “gatekeepers” to aid students in overcoming barriers to their success.

How do administrators partner with faculty and other stakeholders for a collaborative approach to student success.

What are examples of programming or support models to help transfer students succeed?

What policies or institutional barriers exist to impact student completion.?

Identify practices to promote equity in students outcomes, and train campus stakeholders to implement and evaluate them.

Discuss the role technology can play in increasing access and equity towards student completion.

How can the development of online engagement and support strategies be applied to the retention and persistence of students of promise?

What are high-impact intervention measures that can create an efficient approach to increase student achievement?

How are technologies utilized to measure engagement, learning outcomes, program assessment, and student persistence? How can this data be leveraged to support future initiatives?

What resources are institutions providing to help students utilize technology to complete their degrees?

Identify well-being challenges that may affect students degree completion.

What health and wellness efforts do campuses offer to help any student with personal care (such as getting adequate sleep, managing stress levels, and financial wellness/food insecurity)?

What are best practices student affairs practitioners are implementing for partnerships with faculty/academic affairs or community partners to support the mental health needs of students of promise?

What programs and resources do campuses offer to specifically meet the mental health and wellness needs of students of color, queer students, foster youth, non-majority religious students, native students, low ses, students with disabilities students?

First-generation Student Success Themes

Understand the lived experiences and vast intersectionality of first-generation college students across academic years, institutional types, and sectors

In what ways do multiple, intersectional identities shape a student’s understanding of their first-generation identity?

What do first-generation students identify as the most important supports in their holistic success during college? What do first-generation students identify as the largest barriers?

In what ways can intersectional identities be considered in the placement, development, and implementation of first-generation programs and services to create more inclusive environments and serve more students?

What are the systemic issues most detrimental to first-generation student success specifically? What asset-based strategies are currently in place to rectify these issues?

In what ways do institutional shifts toward “student-ready” approaches shape the experiences of first-generation college students?

What roles do campus practitioners and faculty play in removing barriers to success for first-generation students? What strategies are being successfully used at the systemic and institutional levels?

Identify and utilize strategies for supporting first-generation students and bridging gaps in cultural capital through asset-based programmatic approaches, services, and skill-building

What are strategies for identifying and shifting first-generation student support to an asset-based framework? What is the benefit of making this shift?

What programmatic approaches are experiencing success in bridging cultural capital for first-generation students? In what ways does improved cultural capital lead to improved academic outcomes for first-generation students?

What approaches do campus practitioners identify as having the greatest impact on first-generation student experiences and outcomes?

How are successful first-generation programs and services being resourced and scaled to meet the needs of a greater population of students?

Discuss and implement approaches for creating an engaged campus community that identifies, supports, and celebrates first-generation college students

How can a campus audit of policies and procedures uncover opportunities for improving how first-generation students navigate campus?

What are strategies for encouraging senior leadership to commit to first-generation student success as an institutional priority? What successes are campuses finding with the identification of a point person and committee to lead first-generation efforts?

What are approaches to faculty development that improves classroom experiences and pedagogy specific to first-generation student needs?

How are institutions building a campus climate that celebrates the successes of first-generation students and their contributions to the campus community?

Recognize and engage with scholarly literature and current research critical to understanding and advancing first-generation student outcomes

How can current literature and research offer a foundation of evidence for supporting institutional requests for expanded resources or services or for program development?

What are useful approaches to identifying important findings specific to first-generation students when research often focuses on intersectionality?

What innovative new approaches to combating systemic and institutional barriers are present in current and emerging literature? What new programmatic approaches are featured?

How might practitioners and scholars advance first-generation research on their own campuses or as priorities in their own research agenda?

What approaches are institutions using to identify first-generation students, collect data, track across the academic career, securely share information, and utilize raw data and findings to improve experiences?

What evaluation and assessment measures and tactics are being successfully employed with first-generation programs? How is this data used to scale support and secure additional resources?

What approaches are successful in building strong relationships with Institutional Research to access critical academic and persistence data on first-generation students?

What innovative approaches are being used to evaluate the non-cognitive factors of first-generation students?

Student Financial Wellness Themes

Understand the various factors that can impact students’ financial wellness

What are the various aspects that contribute to collegiate financial wellness (e.g. debt, student loans, budget management)?

How does financial wellness intersect with other areas of a student’s holistic identity?

How can departments collaborate across campus and community to identify support both on and off campus?

What are resources (a) for students seeking financial support across units and (b) for departments to develop lasting relationships with other units?

In what ways can off-campus resources be integrated into on-campus support mechanisms/processes?

How can institutions facilitate discussion about institution-wide contributors to financial distress of students, such as account holds from past-due balances, cost of textbooks, increasing tuition, or other institutionally-driven fees and/or the timing of payment deadlines?

Identify solutions for increasing students’ awareness and use of financial wellness programming

What are innovative strategies to engage ever-increasing student usage of campus-based financial wellness support resources and programs?

In what ways can peer-to-peer engagement and coaching positively impact student financial wellness?

With what initiatives (i.e. orientation) can financial wellness topics be integrated to provide overall student understanding and success?

How can various technological platforms (e.g. social media, online courses, educational apps or gamification) be utilized to increase awareness and use of financial wellness programming and/or to reach target groups of students?

What online education methods have been used, and how have institutions successfully encouraged use of these resources?

What are the primary components and methodologies of a successful assessment plan for a collegiate financial wellness program?

How can alumni be incorporated into financial wellness initiatives on or off campus?

Do current research and assessment practices in the field of financial wellness demonstrate short- or long-term positive outcomes for students? For example, how does one’s ability to manage financial stress relate to academic success? How can administrators support academic success for students?

What should research and assessment look like in this area? What do the surveys and methods already look like and what have we learned? Essentially, how do we know that our financial wellness practices are working?

What impact does financial wellness have on life after college? Does it affect one’s decision making when it comes to significant life choices, such as purchasing a car or home, deciding when to get married or start a family, making choices about which career to pursue or how to save for retirement, etc.?

Benefits

The 2020 NASPA Virtual Conferences on Student Success in Higher Education will offer an innovative way to engage remotely through:

Multiple days of curated content facilitated by subject-matter experts from all four conference tracks;

An intuitive online conference platform offering 50+ live educational sessions, connections to presenters and attendees, and access to resources;

Thoughtful presentations from featured speakers to strengthen your knowledge base;

Pre-Conference Workshops

Sunday, June 28 from 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. ET

Using CAS Standards to Create and Assess Programs and Services that Lead to Student Success

Strengthening the capacity of college and university departments to facilitate student success has never been more important. CAS Standards can be used to develop, implement, and assess programs and services that are documented as leading to student success outcomes. In this session, participants will explore the diverse ways to use the CAS Standards and the CAS cross-functional frameworks to enhance program and service delivery. Participants will leave with a plan for implementing CAS self-assessment and program review practices in ways that make sense for the diverse functional areas and institutional types in which we work.

Presenters:

Melissa Brown, Director of Assessment and Strategic Initiatives, The University of Tennessee

Daniel A. Bureau, Associate Vice President for Student Academic Success, The University of Memphis

Gavin Henning, Professor of Higher Education and Program Director, Master of Higher Education and Doctorate of Education Programs, New England College

Nicole Long, Executive Director, Planning and Strategy, University of Delaware

Partnering with Parents and Families of First-generation College Students

Building a sense of community and belonging is incredibly important for first-generation college students. A key factor to this foundation of support is engaging parents and families of first-generation students; institutions can harness this support by viewing parents and families of first-generation students as partners in their students’ success. Drawing from their experiences at mid-size and large, public, four-year institutions, the presenters will first discuss the challenges of engaging the parents of first-generation students. They will then offer a suggested timeline to consider when developing content for communication and engagement. Finally, the presenters will provide examples of partnering opportunities and events, strengthening connections to the institution and levels of support.

Presenters:

Amy Baldwin, Director and Senior Lecturer of Writing, Literacy, and Academic Success in Student Transitions, University of Central Arkansas

First-generation Graduate and Professional Students: We’ve Identified Them, Now How Do We Support Them?

This pre-conference session will focus on supporting first-generation graduate and professional students and their unique position which requires catered support services and institutional investment. The presenters will share how historic models of socialization toward advanced degrees are in need of significant revision to support first-generation scholars. We will also share effective strategies to establish or expand support resources and services for first-generation graduate students. The workshop will provide individuals with the opportunity for discussion and exploration on how to implement these resources and services on their campus.

Building Capacity and a Foundation for those New to Student Success Work

The field of student success is rapidly growing and involves more people. The field of student affairs is often called upon to become the student success experts, and our field has been indicating this trend for a while. This pre-conference workshop will serve as a resource for those new to the student success and retention work as we build capacity and skill in successfully navigating this professional space.

From Conception to Implementation: How to Lead an Effective Student Success Committee

An early step in reorienting the focus of an institution toward student success efforts is the creation of a committee or working group. Despite varying institutional nuances and priorities, these committees are expected to drive institutional change related to student success efforts. Participants in this collaborative workshop will leave with a step-by-step guide for how to develop, lead and sustain effective committees, including who to assemble, setting priorities, strategic planning and effective methods for assessment.

Presenters:

Sarah Beth Bailey, Assistant Dean for New Students and Director of Student Success, New York University

John Burdick, Associate Director of Student Success, New York University

Emily Schlam, Senior Director of Student Success, New York University

Building an Institutional Culture of Caring in the Time of COVID-19: Holistic Approaches to Emergency Aid in a CARES Environment

As institutions consider how to successfully administer emergency aid to Title IV and non-Title IV students and support these students around their very precarious basic needs security, participating in this half-day workshop will allow you to explore specific strategies and actions institutions can take to achieve a more holistic, cost-effective, ED compliant, and student-centric approach to supporting students' needs. National experts will join leading administrators to help participants craft responses that begin with a fundamental shift in institutional culture.

Presenters:

Matthew Cohen, Managing Director, Cohen Strategy Group LLC

Sara Goldrick-Rab, Founding Director, Hope Center for College Community and Justice Temple University

David Helene, CEO, Edquity

Charlotte Gavell, College Success and Housing Stability Coordinator, United Way of King County

This session offers the opportunity for attendees to participate in democratic deliberation, an approach to engaging in conversation where participants may have passionately different viewpoints or perspectives, using NASPA’s newly launched issue guide, Free Speech and the Inclusive Campus. This pre-conference workshop opportunity is offered at no additional cost.

Presenters:

Diana Ali, Associate Director of Policy Research and Advocacy, NASPA

Concern Gathering: Fraternity and Sorority Life

Sunday, June 28 from 2-4pm EST

Please note -- this is a $0 price product.

Ever find yourself holding back from engaging in conversation regarding a potentially controversial issue on your campus, or even amongst those closest to you? With research data indicating a nation evermore divided by political differences, it’s no wonder why. To assist higher education stakeholders in having conversations across differences, NASPA, in partnership with the Kettering Foundation, is developing campus-based resources for dialogue and deliberation within and outside of the curriculum. Following the release of our first issue guide, Free Speech and the Inclusive Campus, we will be focusing our second issue guide on fraternity and sorority life. The specific issue for deliberation is drawn from the input of our community, which helps us to identify and frame the topic. Whether or not you work in fraternity and sorority life, or even have fraternities and sororities affiliated with your institution, your voice is needed. Join us during the 2020 NASPA Conferences on Student Success in Higher Education by participating in our Concern Gathering session. All perspectives are welcomed and encouraged and no experience is necessary to participate.

Presenters:

Diana Ali, Associate Director of Policy Research and Advocacy, NASPA

Heather Black, Dean of Students, Chatham University

Kara Lindaman, Professor, Political Science & Public Administration, Winona State University

Erin Payseur, Project Manager for Community Engagement, University of Mississippi Main Campus

Schedule

All information below is evolving and subject to change. Please click here to view the full schedule with program details.

SaturdayJune 27

SundayJune 28

MondayJune 29

TuesdayJune 30

WednesdayJuly 1

First-gen Forward Workshop

The Virtual First-gen Forward Workshop will take place on Saturday, June 27, 2020, from 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm ET and has a separate registration process from the VCSSHE. This free workshop serves as a dedicated kick-off event for the 2020-21 First-gen Forward cohort as well as continued professional development for the 2019-20 First-gen Forward Cohort.

4:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Registration and Pricing

One registration grants access to all conference speakers, sessions, and features!

Registration as a member is based on individual membership status. If you are employed by a college or university that is an institutional member, you can join as an individual member at the $75 rate. This gives you the conference registration and a year of membership for less than the non-member registration fee. If your institution is NOT a member, then you will need to join at the associate affiliate rate of $242 and then you can pay the individual member rate for conference registration. Visit the membership section of the NASPA website to learn about membership types.

If you were registered for the canceled conference in Baltimore, you should have received an email. If you have additional questions, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions guide or email sshe@naspa.org.

Those looking to register for the First-gen Forward Workshop on Saturday, June 27, 2020, be on the lookout for more information.

Refund Policies

Registration Cancellation Policy: Cancellation/refund deadline less a $50.00 administrative fee is June 19, 2020. This program may be canceled or postponed due to unforeseen circumstances. In this case, fees will be refunded; however, NASPA will not be responsible for additional costs, charges, or expenses, including cancellation/change charges assessed by airlines, hotels, and/or travel agencies. NASPA is not responsible for weather or travel related problems and will not reimburse registration fees for these issues. Please click here to submit a refund request. Refunds will not be processed after June 19, 2020 for any reason.

2021 Information

Join us in the Mile High City in 2021!

We look forward to joining you in person for the 2021 NASPA Conferences on Student Success in Higher Education in Denver, Colorado! Mark your calendar for June 25 - 28, 2021 and check back regularly for more information!